Barnes on Games- Fireteam Zero H2H with Raf, Descent RTL, WHQ: Silver Tower

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The BGG entry for Silver Tower doesn't list a designer or artist. Are there credits given in the rulebook?

There's an article in White Dwarf #121 that lists the designers and artists.
Artists/sculptors: Mark Harrison, Colin Greyson, Steve Buddle, David Waeselynck.
Game designers: James Hewitt, John Michelbach, Tim Molloy.

Don't recognise most of them. Although James Hewitt rings a bell - I think he might have worked at Mantic previously (Dreadball/Deadzone)?

An FYI in case no one has piped up about this yet. The MM site revamp has actually made Review Corner much less visible. None of the product pages seem to have links to the RC reviews, just the customer ones. When I do go to the Review Corner page (a link just labeled "Game Reviews" in the top section), I get a 10 page list of game reviews that I can't sort, search, or filter.

What the actual fuck? Did I just watch Mr. Barnes have a bipolar episode or simply a split personality break?

eteam: Zero is one of the blandest, least inspired and derivative games I have played yet this year. I like almost nothing about this title and there is virtually nothing compelling about it. I think the Hellboy-meets-Resident Evil setting is dull, the miniatures are ugly and the illustrations look like mud. I’m trying to figure out what this dreadful game has to offer, what its raison d’etre is.

And in the very next paragraph...

Don’t get me wrong here, that accessibility is definitely an asset. And I don’t think that it is a complete failure by any means and there likely is an audience for it. It is a perfectly serviceable, working dungeoncrawler.

pwned by Raf! Dude had you backpedaling like Lance Armstrong from the steroid clinic LMAO

As an aside, the 6" wall of tags prior to the review makes the blog format look like ten pounds of shit in a one pound bag.

It's actually so bad I thought the page was broken. I had to scroll down for two or three full swipes (iPhone 6) to get to the review.

Frohike wrote: An FYI in case no one has piped up about this yet. The MM site revamp has actually made Review Corner much less visible. None of the product pages seem to have links to the RC reviews, just the customer ones. When I do go to the Review Corner page (a link just labeled "Game Reviews" in the top section), I get a 10 page list of game reviews that I can't sort, search, or filter.

They're sorted by date posted only. An option for an alphabetical listing would be good.

SuperflyTNT wrote: What the actual fuck? Did I just watch Mr. Barnes have a bipolar episode or simply a split personality break?

eteam: Zero is one of the blandest, least inspired and derivative games I have played yet this year. I like almost nothing about this title and there is virtually nothing compelling about it. I think the Hellboy-meets-Resident Evil setting is dull, the miniatures are ugly and the illustrations look like mud. I’m trying to figure out what this dreadful game has to offer, what its raison d’etre is.

And in the very next paragraph...

Don’t get me wrong here, that accessibility is definitely an asset. And I don’t think that it is a complete failure by any means and there likely is an audience for it. It is a perfectly serviceable, working dungeoncrawler.

pwned by Raf! Dude had you backpedaling like Lance Armstrong from the steroid clinic LMAO

Raf will never pwn me. He's absolutely right about it working and being easy to play. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't suck. The game isn't broken, it's not imbalanced or "flawed" at a design level...it just blows. It's unoriginal, bland and just lame all around. But there is an audience for unoriginal, bland and lame games like this. I was being charitable, damning with very, very faint praise.

birdman37 wrote: There's an article in White Dwarf #121 that lists the designers and artists.
Artists/sculptors: Mark Harrison, Colin Greyson, Steve Buddle, David Waeselynck.
Game designers: James Hewitt, John Michelbach, Tim Molloy.

Don't recognise most of them. Although James Hewitt rings a bell - I think he might have worked at Mantic previously (Dreadball/Deadzone)?

Man I would have sworn Doug Kovacs (of DCC fame) had done some of the interior illustrations.

birdman37 wrote: Don't recognise most of them. Although James Hewitt rings a bell - I think he might have worked at Mantic previously (Dreadball/Deadzone)?

I believe that's right. I think he was involved with Dreadball in some capacity.

Comment in the leaving post on beastsofwar.com regarding his move to "another company" "Your first job James should be to get to re release all the specialist games stuff"

Seems to be the case!

Interested in thoughts on Silver Tower/WHQ in six months or so when the new cardboard smell has worn off.

Buddy, you were on a roll. You had the game on the ropes, it was swaying and blinking...hands at nippy height, not chin height. Raf was in the other corner, yelling "YOU'LL KILL HIM! REMEMBER NICK BLACKWELL". Thinking back to that fight, you did what Eubank's dad said, "BODY SHOTS, YOU'LL KILL HIM".

And my response above is the press crucifying you for not knocking its head off, into the slathering cheers of the crowd. You couldn't dealt a death blow to Kickstarters everywhere .... REMEMBER: BARNES IS WATCHING.

I'm going to look on my shelf for a toad that needs an absolute trouncing. I'll show you how to really lay into a game, leaving it in the fecal position on the ground. No, that wasn't a typo. The fecal position is like the fetal position, except that the subject is in the fetal position but laying in a pile of their own excrement.

Jem, I think that as long as GW supports the new WHQ, it will have staying power. I've played only twice now, and I haven't impressed friends into a game yet, but...I think it might be THE ONE as far as I'm concerned.

The game I played last night was just freaking amazing. I did the first scenario again because I flubbed the end of the first run through. Got a totally different set of encounters, different rooms, different Unexpected Events...it was functionally a completely different scenario.

So we did pretty good (Knight-Questor, Darkoath Chieftain, Mistweaver Saih), had a little trouble with a special Pink Horror mini-boss called The Librarian, but we made it to the last room. And stuff went on in there that was WAY more RPG-ish than what is typical for this genre in board games. Spoilers from here.



So that was all a nice little bit of action and coordination. Oh, and the Knight-Questor got hit by an Unexpected Event that sucked him up to the ceiling for a turn and then dropped him unceremoniously into the middle of the room.

OH, and also, I had a Familiar spawn...this little bastard reduced all to-hit rolls in the room by one. But you can CATCH these things, and they give YOU a bonus if you do so- it's a contested roll to see if you can grab them before they go away. How cool is that.

I think I referenced the rules one time. This is SUPER intuitive, SUPER easy to grasp.

But yeah, we got our first piece of the talisman, now on to the next adventure.

It is definitely feeling like GOTY material. The cost is high. But I would rather have spent $125 on this than any other game I've played this year. I am all in to buy anything they release for it, and I will get the Mighty Heroes as soon as possible.

Oh, and I got the dice stacking thing. It was awesome. I think it's a fun, unique way to resolve that. Don't be so damn serious about it. It's more fun than making an agility check.

One of the things I really like about Zombicide Prison outbreak is those switch-flicking puzzles they make with the rotating doors and such. Still kind of tempted for this at $30 sans minis, but I dunno, that's Caverns of Cynder money...